


The Case of the Rolling Wheel and the Long Road

by fresne



Series: The Long road [1]
Category: Posh Nosh, Pushing Daisies, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: F/M, M/M, Podfic, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-26
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ch1: The facts were these, when Sherlock Holmes was thirty years, four months, twenty-nine days, five hours and thirty-six minutes old, he fell over a waterfall. However, despite his considerable experience in the matter, he found that sometimes death has a grace period.<br/>Ch2: In which there is some explanation as to what happens when the Blackbird sang - no noses removed<br/>Ch3: Some notes<br/>Ch4: In which there are further explanations as to why the denizens of the Pie Hole are in England. Plus adventure. Plus singing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Contains the occasional (and sometimes repeated) death of main characters.  
> Pushing Daisy's central concept is fairly central to this story. That said, Pushing Daisy's characters appearances are quite brief.
> 
> Podcast for the first half [here](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/case-of-rolling-wheel)  
> and then [Six Pence, Some Rye](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/song-of-sixpence-some-rye)
> 
> The following inspiration for this work and inspiration for my dialogue, where I am not directly quoting, because apt quotes are cool:  
> Every episode of Pushing Daisies and Posh Nosh

At that minute, Sherlock Holmes was thirty years, four months, twenty-nine days, five hours and thirty-six minutes old. In that he was wrestling one James Moriarty, there was the distinct possibility of not growing an hour older. A matter of life and death. The culmination of a life’s work, that minute.

Sherlock had let his faithful Doctor go with a mad grin and a quick wink. He had walked with impatient steps to this spot where Moriarty waited. To this. For this. Arms wrapped around each other and fast pulled breaths as hands grappled for a better hold. Pushed and grunted and shoved and ultimately, this was a matter of death. As Moriarty tumbled back, arm-in-arm they went over the edge of Reichenbach falls.

As he fell, Sherlock Holmes thought:  
1\. Mathematically. The rate of their decent. v = v0 + a*t.  
2\. Logically. The types of injuries that they would sustain and the way in which those injuries would present upon their corpses. He reflected that it was a pity that he would not have the opportunity to examine their remains.  
3\. Thematically. The look Watson’s face would take when he realized the ruse. The way Watson’s voice would echo and fade on the rocks as he called and heard no answer.

The hard smack of water was a revelation. For a moment. Then that mighty consciousness went dark.

However, unexpected as it might have been in the considerable experience of both Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty, it turned out that in certain circumstances, death had a grace period.

Not that Sherlock Holmes was to know that in the short term. Because to all intents and purposes and actualities, he was dead. The blunt blow of water drove the air from his lungs and left him only with water for breath. Since humans, and Sherlock was in this regard quite human, need air to breath, a lack of that air paired with unconsciousness rendered him quite dead. Also, sad as it is to report, his was not a particularly interesting corpse, since being dead was practically the only thing wrong with him.

Professor Moriarty, whose sole focus during the fall had been to position their spinning forms such that Sherlock's body took the blunt force trauma of the fall (v = v0 + a*t and p + 1/2pV(2) + pgh = constant and A(1)V(1) = A(2)V(2) and p(e) + 1/2pV(2)(e) = p(0) and C(p) = p-p(e)/ 1/2pV(2)(e)) was less dead and more alive. He was in fact on top while Sherlock was on the bottom.

After Moriarty emerged from the depths, he laughed in triumph. It wasn’t the culmination of a life’s work. That would involve coils and threads and control. Still, he pulled Sherlock's body from the water with a wet inert thump to the shore. He laughed and he grinned and he crouched like a spider over the dead body. He hardly noticed young Adelheid as she abandoned her duties guarding her goats and with an unthinking hand touched Sherlock's face. Of course, for a mind such as Moriarty’s hardly was not the same as not at all.

A tiny spark crackled under her fingers. Sherlock coughed out water in a sudden exhale. Breathed in air and was very much alive.

Unthinking, because while young Adelheid was neither intellectually, spiritually or physically special, she was nevertheless special. Heretofore, she had only used her specialness to bring her goats back to life and thus doomed numerous scamper-no-more deer. Nevertheless, her touch worked much the same for the world’s only consulting detective.

Unthinking, because life had a price. Sixty seconds worth. In that young Adelheid was neither intellectually or spiritually special, she pulled back her unthinking hand and cradled it against her chest. She glanced back and forth between the two men and was entirely uncertain what she should do next.

Professor James Moriarty, who it must be admitted was not at his best having fallen over a rather high waterfall, lost twelve critical seconds staring at the not-dead Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes, who it must be admitted was also not at his best given that he had fallen over a rather high waterfall and died, spent twelve critical seconds looking up at the sky. The color of which was precisely nine degrees brighter and more colorful than before he died. In fact, every color was richer. Saturated. The roar of the water of greater intensity. The taste of the water more rank. The smell of the crushed moss beneath him deeper. The feel of the stones sharper. It was like being himself, only nine times more so, which for most people would be a blessing. To be more. Since Sherlock Holmes had always been rather a lot, this was a bit much.

Twelve seconds. He looked up and Moriarty looked down. Moriarty, who knew a dead body when he heaved it, grinned. He said, “Wonderful. Now I can kill you again.” He sneered at Adelheid. “I’ll kill him and you’ll bring him back. Over and over, because I win!”

If Adelheid had spoken English, she might have told him that it didn’t work that way. But she didn’t speak a word of English. She shrank back at Moriarty’s tone. The sidelong serpentine movement of his head. The way he crouched. Licked his lips in sudden darts of tongue. Thirty-two seconds.

Sherlock rolled and tumbled Moriarty to the ground and they were at it again. Top and bottom and rolling in the soft sucking sand next to the pool. The waterfall fell on.

Adelheid thought the not-dead man was beautiful and likely to be grateful to her, and being thirteen was much swayed by this thought. She also thought that the other man was mean and angry and not nice at all, and being thirteen was equally swayed by that thought. She held her unthinking hand to her heart pounding chest. Forty-nine seconds.

They tumbled towards her. She stepped out of the way. Sixty seconds and the choice was made. A flash of light and Moriarty went grey. Sherlock let go and Moriarty’s body fell still with a squelch on the damp earth. Uninteresting and not much wrong with him, but for the fact that Professor James Moriarty was quite dead.

The waterfall roared on. Sherlock yelled over the din, but he lacked the German and Adelheid utterly lacked the English to explain.

But she did what she could. She’d been thinking and planning how to explain this for years. Her whole short life. The culmination of a life. Well, she was just thirteen and these things are all relativistic. She picked up a brown leaf and placed it next to a flower. At her touch, the leaf turned glossy green. Sixty seconds later, one minute in fact, the flower wilted. Adelheid touched the leaf again. It went brown at her touch. She looked at Sherlock and expressively raised her eyebrows, rolled her eyes, pursed her lips, waved her hands, and did everything but a country dance.

Sherlock, who was by no definition in any dictionary that ever has or ever shall be written slow in comprehension, sighed. For it seemed that in the end, Professor James Moriarty had been defeated by a thirteen year old goat herding girl with dark curls and a gift for mute comedy.

He sighed and became distracted by the sensation of that sigh. Which really would not do at all. Especially, as from above, he heard Watson’s voice call the syllables of his name. “Holmes! Where are you Holmes! Answer me. Holmes!” Sherlock shivered. It was the cold. He was wet. He’d been dead. That was it entirely.

He looked at the ground where the toss and turn of the earth spoke encyclopedias of what had occurred and it would take an utter imbecile not to comprehend. Sherlock with a high appreciation of the imbecility of his fellow man and the impossibility of facing Watson in this moment, left Adelheid with the corpse and went away for what may be referred to as the Great Sulk.

Of Sherlock’s eventual return to 221B Baker Street, much has already been written. None of it featured the minute changes in color in Watson’s face as he saw Sherlock returned from the dead. None of it mentioned the ever patient flutter of Watson’s eyelids as he heard the words and drank them in. It was implied how he forgave any and every trespass.

How Watson came to once more sit across from Holmes in their accustomed chairs. The toes of their slippered feet exactly three inches apart as the coal fire hissed in the narrow grate.

Sherlock heard the hiss and thought:  
1\. There is a potential experiment in the decay rate of coal tar extract. Watson cannot possibly object. It would be for science.  
2\. Watson twitched his foot every three point five seconds. He was remembering the musical performance that they had heard the previous evening.  
3\. Sherlock could slip off his slipper and move his foot three inches to the left and touch the quarter inch of Watson’s exposed skin with his toes. There were twelve short pale hairs that glinted in the gaslight.

Sherlock read the agony columns for the detritus of crime. He said, “Boring.” What he meant was that the criminal classes had become incredibly boring with the death of Moriarty.

His friend smiled at him over his newspaper, which had stained the tips of his fingers with smudged ink. There was a faint smear of it on his left cheek.

Sherlock did not mention Moriarty. He did not push off his slipper. Full of so much furious motion, Sherlock sat still. That minute gave way to other minutes.

Until one evening, not long after Watson married for a second time, Sherlock met Mycroft at the Diogenes Club. Mycroft smiled from his deep chair and said, “Someone has to watch matters, Sherlock.” Under the Bay Rum of his aftershave, Mycroft smelled like death. Outside yellow snow fell on the great cesspit and the Diogenes Club reeked of wet wool. The scotch that Mycoft handed Sherlock tasted like a thousand years of compressed earth.

Sherlock said, “I wouldn’t have expected you to go mountain climbing.”

Mycroft replied, “Don’t be obtuse. I brought the mountain to me and put her in my employ.” They drank the scotch and outside the snow thick with coal dust fell down on London and all it contained.

Of the way the years passed and the world changed, much has already been written. And Sherlock, well, actually Sherlock did change. Just not in the normal ways. Sherlock had never much been one for the normal. If Mycroft changed, little was written and what was written has since been redacted.  
.  
Silver crept hair by hair onto Watson’s head. Sherlock counted them as it happened. Watson’s wife did not count them. Not the first wife, who had died during the Great Sulk and therefore had a disadvantage at counting anything. Nor the second wife, who had her own silver hairs to count.

Watson’s silver hairs were left to Sherlock. He counted them.

Moriarty II ran a criminal empire out of a cheerfully, brilliant, pink, monstrosity house by the sea in Brighton. She sent Sherlock taunting post cards by way of Waga-Waga and Beedie-Beedie all over painted with pretty pictures and traces of dissolved human hearts in the lingering perfume and florid purple ink. He said nothing to his Watson. Went to his meeting by the lapping sea. It was unsatisfying. She said, “The world is full of fools and we’re the only people in it. The rest are our reflections that we could make run and dance if we wanted,” and held out her diamond-ringed hand. Sherlock did not step forward onto the obvious trap door with its reek of lye. What followed next was entirely an accident. He did sigh and sourly curse overly complex architecture. At least there was successful arson.

Three days later, Sherlock chased a Powder Monkey that he was intent on foiling down cobbled streets. Watson was a solid shape a step behind and to the left. Until he stumbled and fell. Sherlock stopped and looked at his friend.  
1\. Watson had a recurring twinge in the leg where that Jezail bullet had made its intrusion.  
2\. The Powder Monkey had had red saponaceous clay and turkey excrement on his boots, which indicated that he’d been to the Scrubs.  
3\. Watson had slight tremble in his right hand. Sherlock stared at it to make it stop. The tremble remained.  
4\. It was now of greater efficiency to count the hairs that were not silver. Sherlock could not be bothered with efficiency.

Watson coughed out the words, “We lost him.” He blinked. He couldn’t see past Sherlock’s greasepaint and silver painted hair.

Sherlock glared at Watson’s hand. There were three more liver spots. He added that to the count. “No, he’s looking for a man about deworming turkeys.” He helped Watson to his feet. For those who are concerned, Sherlock did catch the Powder Monkey later that night in a cement building where he ground deworming crystals into his latest explosive mix. A high oxygen content being an explosion’s friend. The building went up and down in a purple cloud that Holmes washed out of his hair for weeks. Watson had insisted on following. His cough grew worse.

Sherlock retired. He tended to restless, buzzing, busy honeybees on the chalky downs and wrote a monogram. Tended to the Queen.

He didn’t retire. He fought war adjacent. Plucked secrets. Cracked codes. Went to Chicago and grew a beard that did not suit him. He experimented. He drank alcohol made in bathtubs. He tried “things” to dim and blunt and dull. But what of it. His body was an engine and his mind a machine.

Mycroft sent him a telegram. “Death does not always have a grace period.”

He went home to the London streets emptied of young men. To a low steady boom across the channel.

A young woman with bright eyes gave him a white feather as he walked down Fleet street. He twirled it between his fingers as the booms echoed. The feather was an dove feather. The symbolism was mixed. As they accumulated, he made a fan of them and sent it to his brother, who sent him a note and a badge in reply. “Not actually the entire government. However, will see a man about a ship.” Sherlock threw the note away, but he kept the badge for King and Country. It kept him from getting white feathers. He listened to the echoes and investigated a lost and found and stolen painting.

Moriarty III was all art. The Michelangelo of grift on a silk couch. It was a wonder he ever arranged anyone’s death. Sherlock never met him. Correspondence and the odd stolen government. Sherlock deducted, but in circles. Influenza found Moriarty III first. Sherlock stretched out on Moriarty’s silk couch in his empty house and flexed his toes in the patterned silk and said, “Pandemic.” Closed his eyes. “Dull.”

Lost generation. A generation lost.

Sherlock sought out those places of hellish cruelty, of hidden wickedness which went on, year in, year out. Which is to say, he went into the countryside. Pastoral pastiche. Mustard filled fields. Red poppies. Desolate farmhouses and perilous walks. Swam in seas thick with Lions Manes and prowled smuggler’s caves. He went into the desert as some do and came out much the same, if dustier. If slightly radioactive. But that was the world for you. Slightly more radioactive.

Moriarty IV toured and gave speeches. He filled self-actualization-transcendence centers full of people in white robes and wide smiles. Bullets each of them, which Moriarty IV aimed at will. Thieves fueled with a fury of conviction. Sherlock met with him in Santa Cruz when it was the serial killer capital of the world. They had arsenical dandelion wine in a cavern of faces. They weren’t carvings. Lost boys under the earth. Moriarity IV shouted his manifesto and the walls screamed his name. Moriarty spread his arms wide. “Doom am I, full-ripe, dealing death to the worlds, engaged in devouring mankind. Even without my slaying them not one of the warriors, ranged for battle against me, shall survive. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Sherlock sipped his arsenical wine. Moriarty did like to talk.

Moriarty IV also should have stopped with the fifth glass. His Mithridatism wasn’t quite all that he thought it was.

Sherlock met the imitations of himself. When he met the first one, he stared at him for three hours until the man broke and gushed a solid stream of deduction. Facts. His gift and curse. Broken. They were all broken. Sherlock flung himself down in a chair and put his hand over his face in a flounce to put all other flounces to talking about it. He got up. He deleted.

He spread his fingers over the side of a Compac luggable and caressed the word, “Delete", with his tongue. It felt good. The word delete. Dull criminals with insufficient imagination, he deleted them. The color of Doctor John Watson’s eyes. He deleted. The precise flush of red in his cheeks when the game was afoot. Deleted the steady stream of time.

Moriarty V was a computer program written by a bored fourteen year old boy. It was fairly brilliant and deadly and all its speeches were in long numeric flows. Until lightening struck (twelve times) and wiped out the backups.

Sherlock by now might have suspected that he was in competition with God, but he wasn’t the sort. He had seen the atom split after all.

Sherlock drained home to the cesspit. His landlady’s name was not Mrs. Hudson when he met her in bright sandy Florida. That was Mycroft’s little joke. That there was a Lestrade at (New) Scotland Yard, what of it. Son followed boring father as followed by boring son.

The fog was gone. The coal fire too. In its place, he’d grown a blur at the edges of his vision. Or sharp bright colors that cut the eyes. Memories that replayed. Watson nodding his head along to the memory of a song. Deleted as they occurred.

Bored. He was so very, very bored. Still. There were corpses to whip and he quite liked refrigeration and microwaves and smart phones. He liked smart things. He liked crime scenes. They had always been vivid.

He stood in the lab and held a pipette and in walked a man with a limp. Sherlock did not know him. Sherlock knew him. Hair and clothing and stance said military. Wounded. Doctor. Tanned. He heard the introduction and he thought the following along seven separate tracks, because by now he could think seven separate things at once.  
1\. Twenty-seven entries for John Watson in Wikipedia. John B. Watson, father of behaviorism. Discard.  
2\. Statistical probability that a doctor-soldier wounded in Afghanistan be named John Watson. 2006 Census data insufficient.  
3\. Dr. John Watson looked nothing like Dr. John Watson, which indicated that deletion of appearance had been ineffective. Inappropriate backups from tertiary drives?  
4\. Sherlock’s heart rate had increased by two beats per ten seconds. Interesting.  
5\. He had left his riding crop in the morgue. Inconvenient. A ghost of it hot in his hand.  
6\. John has a psychosomatic limp in his leg. Intriguing. Where then was his injury? Shoulder. Yes, shoulder. Interesting. Sherlock needed to see it. Even though, he’d never seen the first injury. Irrelevant.  
7\. John’s - not Watson’s - eyes fluttered in an ever patient sort of way. They would feel like pinned butterflies on Sherlock’s skin. Potential experiment? Yes.

He invited him home with a smile and wink. John came.

It was all very intriguing. Mycroft thought so too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have flirted cameras at John. Faithful John.

Sherlock took John on a date and told him that he was married to his work. He loved the way his tongue curled around the word "married" and the word "work". Toil. Action. Motion. Movement. Change. John looked nothing like Watson, who had been a part and blood and bone to the work. Breathed in unison as they ran.

Sherlock left the candle behind to burn down on the table. John left his cane.

Psychosomatic. Echo. Interesting.

He looked at that cabbie and he knew that both pills were poison. Mithridatism. Always with the Mithridatism. Sherlock held the pill up to the light and he wanted to taste what it felt like to die. Crack. A hole in the glass. A hole in the cabbie. It felt like something not a hundred years away to push at the wound. Moriarty. VI. Sherlock smiled.

He was married to his work.

He lay on the couch and stretched. Brushed his fingers along the flocked patterns in the wallpaper. As he stared into the middle distance, he listened to John type slow and careful on his computer. In the corner of the room, on the third shelf, behind the jar of desiccated beetles, there was a box of papers written in long hand. He listened to John type. Could hear the echoed scratches as Watson had nibbed through a Study in Scarlet. Rache. Rachel. Red. Pink. Jeff Hope had been Moriarty VI’s idea of a calling card. A joke. To be killed by hope. Echoes.

This Moriarty wooed with tangled riddles.

On fire. Sherlock was on fire. Felt it dance on his skin. Fanned by the flutter of eyes on him. Wanted the gasped, “Incredible. Amazing.”

He’d learned and deleted that the earth went round the sun so many times. Deleted. Fire. Gravity. Fg = G (m1*m2)/(d^2). He’d had that in his head once. Deleted. Water. He was fire and there was only one solution.

He stared at the not-Vermeer and cocked his head. Wondered if he’d been right to delete everything about his great-uncle. A fragmented memory of his mother talking about brush strokes. A brush entangled with the feeling of playing his violin. Bow in hand. He degragmented his mind. Vernet and Vermeer were different painters. He played his violin. It was the song that Watson had twitched his foot to while a coal fire hissed. Sherlock stopped playing. He plucked discord on the strings instead.

He sat in his chair and he waited. He hated waiting. Watson. No, John, pulled him short. Caring about the dead wouldn’t solve the puzzle any faster. Sherlock sat and stared. Remembered stacks of bodies. Influenza. Delete. Somme. Delete. Songs. Sherlock’s arguments with Watson had been all devil’s foot and letting carbuncle thieves go before they ate the goose. This was now the moment he was in. John, who had been to war and returned, shone astonishment at him. Sherlock shut down three separate subroutines.

He went to the pool with the Bruce Partington Plans, because Mycroft did like his little jokes. Went to meet Moriarty and met Watson in a padded coat, which it took him sixty seconds to understand. In that sixty seconds, Watson was Moriarty and Sherlock thought along seven tracks:  
1\. Oh!  
2\. Oh!  
3\. Oh!  
4\. Oh!  
5\. Oh!  
6\. Oh!  
7\. Moriarty was more common than he thought. Doctor John Watson was so much harder to find.

John yelled at him to run. Held Moriarty to his chest in a strong embrace. Sherlock did not. Why would he run? Now of all times. Idiot.

They looked at each other. Red dots. Brilliant. Bright. Puffy coat on the floor. The flutter of John’s eyes. Of John Watson’s eyes. Sherlock recorded to the hard drive. Backups. He’d always had backups. Fired. Jumped. Boom.

The thing to remember about water was that it was both permeable and incompressible. If the explosives had been in the water that would have been unfortunate, but they were not. Boom.

The thing to remember about modern high velocity bullets was that they shattered on impact with water. It was all about surface tension. Jumping in a pool wouldn’t have helped with the low velocity bullet that shattered Watson’s clavicle and grazed his subclavicle artery. That had sliced through his leg. If there had been a pool at Maiwand. As there had been a pool at Reichenbach.

Sherlock had not yet seen John’s scar. Smelled it. Tasted it. Touched it. Never seen the place on his leg where there was no scar. Under the water, Sherlock resolved that that would not do.

It was brilliant and perfect and Sherlock was on fire. That was the problem. They were at the bottom of a pool. Fire needed oxygen.

It was a bit of a miscalculation. Bullets shattering on the surface of the water. Fine dust that fell like coal tainted snow on their skin. Sherlock felt it. The pressure of the water. The brush of liquid stirred by John’s hand motions to keep himself below the surface. Bubbles of air clung to John’s face. Sherlock could have stayed down there forever. Considered brushing his lips to John’s. Purely to share the air in his lungs. Purely. Sherlock only lied to himself on tracks one through six. On the seventh track, he told the truth. Not pure. Married. Blood. Bone. Breath.

Sirens wailed. They answered the call and surfaced. Gasped. There was no adolescent Swiss girl. Moriarty VI was gone in the permanent smear sort of way. A chunk of building too. John said, “That was incredible.” He looked at the carnage by the pool. He said, this moral steady man, “Good.” It was good. It was great. Grand. Incredible. John said, “Oh, God. I need to call Sarah.” Oh. That again.

They heaved themselves out of the water and staggered into the arms of Lestrade. Blood shot eyes. Weary. Lestrade. Nothing like Lestrade. Everything like a Lestrade.

Anti-climax. In the parking lot, Mycroft rolled his eyes at Sherlock and endured jokes about his weight that were sixty years out of context. They were their own context.

Watson went to see Sarah.

Sherlock sulked on the couch. He curled his toes into the soft cushions. Deleted thoughts about lips. Deleted the seventh track, which indexed a restore point. Curled on himself. He heard an echo. “Sherlock, you have to eat.” He felt the warmth of John next to him on the cramped couch. Not close enough to touch. Careful space. Sherlock wormed into it. He disrespected space between them.

He considered saying, “No, I don’t.” He considered saying, “No, I do not.” He considered saying nothing. Instead, he allowed himself to be handled.

Ate soup from a tin. It tasted like tin, which was clearly impossible because the tin only contained trace amounts of tin.

John asked, “Sherlock, why are all bowls full of dead rats?”

Sherlock swallowed soup. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t answer it. He ignored it. Magnificently. Profoundly. Significantly.

John sighed and fished the smart phone out of Sherlock’s silky-soft-brilliant-blue-dressing gown. A faint soft brush of three fingers against his hip bone through fabric. Sherlock did not breath in. His pupils did not dilate. He had more self control than that. The seventh track disagreed. He deleted it. Again.

John said, “It’s Lestrade. A man’s been found baked into a pie with twenty-four blackbirds in the middle of a comfort food convention.”

Sherlock sat up. He grinned. He shucked off the robe. Slid on the coat. Flourished. Dramatic scarf. Didn’t even have to beckon. John one step behind and to the left. He could feel the solid steady weight of him.

He went to the scene of the crime. He looked at the body in the pie. A body, which had been poisoned, stabbed, bludgeoned and then baked into a pie with a crust that used significant amounts of home made lard, before being briefly revived for exactly fifty-eight seconds based on the flail pattern in the crust, and then dead again. Sherlock smiled and thought the following seven thoughts:  
1\. John liked the Cornish pasties sold at the corner shop.  
2\. Sherlock had recently completed a series of experiments on the rats from the back ally regarding the ingestion of atropine derived from Mandragora officinarum.  
3\. Lestrade was questioning an American, vegetarian Piemaker, who kept his hands very firmly in his pockets and tried to appear a foot smaller than he was. An American woman in a very red dress stood next to the Piemaker. She smelled like death and urban honey. She was not wearing perfume. An American detective, who was nothing like Sherlock, yelled at Lestrade, “Hell no!”  
4\. John was very solid next to Sherlock. Currents of breath. A steady heart beat and a steady hand.  
5\. Watson had forgiven every trespass. John was very forgiving.  
6\. This was a very interesting case. Not the case itself, because clearly the King of Diamond Chestnuts had poisoned the dead man, the Knave of Clubs Cookies had bludgeoned him, and the Queen of Strawberry Heart-tarts had stabbed and baked him.  
7\. Moriarty was always less unique than he or she thought. That would useful. Sherlock did understand symmetry.

Experimentation was in order. Sherlock tossed a dead blackbird at the Piemaker. He caught it. The dead bird flew away. The Piemaker swallowed. A CCTV camera twitched in the corner of the room. John gaped and said, “Extraordinary!”

Sherlock smiled and considered encouraging John to have a savory pie for dinner. He considered the agony columns and where he might find another Moriarty. After all, seven was both a lucky and a safe prime. The seventh track recorded something else. Sherlock backed it up in memory and brushed the tips of his fingers along John’s warm and steady elbow as Sherlock guided John in the direction he wanted him to go.


	2. What died when the Blackbird Came back to Life? An excellent question.

The facts were these - Pigeon McPigeonton aged three years, two months, three weeks, five days, two hours and one minute old, had one day walked through the doorway into the Spectacular-Spectacular Convention-Convention center, which was the newest and most spectacular of all convention centers in London. It was also directly attached to the Church of Saint Louise the Semi-Helpful, because the church funded the construction.

In any case, Pigeon McPigeonton, in the manner of most pigeons that walk into buildings, walked in and promptly forgot that he walked and not flew inside. He was ever after unable to leave the convention center, which was a blessing really. There was always leftover food, no rain, and he was able to fly into the tall gothic arches of Saint Louise the Semi-Helpful and listen to the convention organizers, who inevitably played "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by Bach in the church after they'd successfully pulled off their convention. They each thought they were unique in this. Time and time again, Pigeon McPigeonton tried to suggest a little Porgy and Bess, to no avail.

This was in fact what he was doing when Ned brought a Blackbird back to life. Drawn by the sound of the gloomy music, the Blackbird, whose name was Merl, flew straight to the Church of Saint Louise the Semi-Helpful. Merl settled on the rafter next to Pigeon McPigeonton and said, "It's a beautiful day. He should play 'Summertime' by Gershwin,” and Merl sang a few bars.

Pigeon McPigeonton had just enough time to say, "That is exactly what I was thinking," when unfortunately, the minute was up and Pigeon McPigeonton fell to the ground dead.

Merl looked down at the dead pigeon on the pew below and said, "My mistake. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is more appropriate." He had time to listen to the entire performance, before Mycroft's men collected him with a delicious offering of a can of candied sesame seeds, which no Merl of Blackbirds had ever been able to resist opening.

Since what then occurred was (and still is) top secret, it cannot be disclosed here. Although, I can disclose that it involved an umbrella whose purpose was not entirely to ward off the weather. Since I have already said too much, I can say no more.


	3. Notes - References - Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is explained. 42. See, now you don't even need to read the notes.

~30 years - The final problem is placed May 1891. Given the age of the actor in the BBC series, I went with Laurie King's argument on Sherlock's age. I.e., Jan 4, 1861, rather than the other contender, Jan 4, 1854.  
~Reichenbach falls - Oh, Sherlock, really, wrestling on the top of a waterfall. Oddly, I find, iocane powder cooler. But then again, what Moriarty doesn't know is the masked man is not really left handed.  
~v = v0 + a*t and p + 1/2pV(2) + pgh = constant and A(1)V(1) = A(2)V(2) and p(e) + 1/2pV(2)(e) = p(0) and C(p) = p-p(e)/ 1/2pV(2)(e) = hmm... I really should have saved the link on this one. Basically, these are formulas for gravity and calculating spinny things flying or rolling or yawing in the air. Hey, I majored in literature, which was also a million years ago.  
~Adelheid - Before they were translated into English, Heidi's name was Adelheid. Because seriously, if any Swiss girl was going to bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead it was Heidi. Heck, Lassie almost showed up and barked at Timmy down a well. That Timmy. Always, jumping in wells. It’s a cry for attention.  
~Saturated - My explanation for the color palate in Pushing Daisies.  
~The Great Sulk - well, I mean seriously. Given Sherlock's characterization, irresistible.  
~coal tar extract - At least one of the things he said he was doing was in France examining coal tar extract during the Great... errr... Sulk.  
~Married a second time - ah the great debate. Was Watson married 1, 2 or 3 times. Hmmm...  
~Diogenes Club - Mycroft's club, of which he is the co-founder. Although, I like the "Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" idea that it's just spies. I almost went off in a tangent about a little match girl dying on the street, but skipped it as a tangent. And really, while I like the idea of Castiel consulting Sherlock while on his quest for God, not sure how that works with a little dead Victorian match girl. Oh, the pathos.  
~Moriarty II - She's a version of H.H. Holmes (no relation - his real name was Mudgett), who built a murder-castle-warren-hotel in Chicago during the World's Fair. Proximity aside, if Sherlock was going to face off against someone, forget Jack the Ripper, it should be H.H. Holmes, who grifted, robbed, and killed lets just say way more people in just as horrible a ways.  
~Powder Monkey - Because you shouldn't touch the monkey. Oh, wait, not. Originally a term from the days of sail for the boy that carries the gunpowder to the cannons. Here used so I wouldn't accidentally call the villain the midnight-bomber-what-who-bombs-at-midnight.  
~Jezail bullet - Depending on your story, Watson was shot in his shoulder or his leg. Or hey, why not both. More than one injury being possible. I also like the idea that John has one less injury. The leg being an echo in his flesh. It’s not that he’s the reincarnation or anything. Merely that his limp is a sympathetic one. Like speaks to like. Mind you, like doesn’t always have something useful to say.  
~Saponaceous clay - In twelfth grade, my English class had the assignment to write an essay on a word that first occurred in various years using the OED. My word was saponaceous.  
~Scrubs - the area around Wormwood scrubs. No idea if there's saponaceous clay there. Sherlock would know. When next we see him, let’s ask.  
~deworming turkeys - Let's just say there's a purple crystal used (well, in the 1930s - it's a long story) in deworming turkeys that due to the high amount of oxygen locked into its makeup when used in explosives (rather than turkeys) results in a very large, very purple, explosion.  
~Went to Chicago - The real reason Holmes blows his cover in "His Last Bow" is because he doesn't like being a spy. He likes dramatically exposing spies. Or the reason that story is told in the third person is because - cue dramatic music - Watson was actually dead!  
~White Feather - As one might infer, a white feather means, you suck, you coward, go enlist. Out of his feathers, Sherlock also made a hair piece and flocked a little black dress, which hangs in his closet to this day.  
~King and Country - The Government handed these badges out so men who really did need to stay home and do x,y, z would stop getting the white feathers.  
~Pandemic - The Influenza pandemic that came at the end of WWI was highly virulent, fast acting, and killed between 15-20 million people world wide. There's a story in there somewhere where Sherlock investigates a card party, where four out of the five players all died in one night. No foul play. Influenza. Rinse, wash, repeat.  
~Lost Generation - So, here's where Sherlock = Hemmingway, but with less fishing and drinking and attempted relationships with women.  
~places of hellish cruelty, of hidden wickedness which went on, year in, year out - Oh, look a direct quote on Sherlock's views on the countryside. Plus, some not so subtle references to WWI: mustard flowers/gas and red poppies.  
~Lions Manes - Yay, another story reference.  
~Radioactive - I kept trying to write a three-four sentence section on Sherlock and the Manhattan project and this was it.  
~Moriarty IV - I had intended to cross with Lost Boys here, but couldn't quite make it work. In the 70s, Santa Cruz, CA had two active serial killers and one mass murderer, and thus it's locativeness for Lost Boys. The hell hole cave, which includes a hall of faces shaped in the clay by visitors, is a cave system in Santa Cruz. Moriarty gets the Bhagavad Gītā speech because I couldn't fit the speech into the Manhattan project non-section. Plus, Moriarty really does like to talk. Also, he kind of misses the point of the book, but Sherlock's not really in a position to do lit crit. He is in a position to drink poison.  
~Mithridatism - When a person slowly builds up their immunity to poisons by taking small amounts of them. Named after the ancient king Mithridates, who thereafter couldn’t poison himself when he was captured. Also known as, “Why is that Iocane powder in my cup or a Sicilian when life is on the line?” No wait, a land war Asia. My mistake.  
~Compac Luggable - My first computer. 40 pounds of portability.  
~Moriarty V - Do you want to play a game? Actually, I had a job where I was hired to type up some reports for a week. Then got called in the next week, because that Friday lightening had struck the building and fried the backups.  
~Vernet - Sherlock said his great uncle was Vernet, which for a moment watching the episode made me go... Vernet... no wait, Vermeer does not equal Vernet. Different people, centuries, countries, get an art history grip.  
~high velocity bullets - One of my favorite episodes of Myth Busters. Mind you jumping in water isn't great when a there's a bomb in the water. Which is why I threw in an "explainer".  
~Piemaker - Ah, finally some actual Pushing Daisies, which is why the mystery is wacky. Oh, pie of four and twenty blackbirds, why you so evil?  
~Blackbird - Sixty seconds, one minute in fact, after the blackbird came back to life, a pigeon that had had been trapped in the rafters of the convention center dropped to it's death. Since it had lived a full, fat and very healthy life protected from the weather, there's no need to be sad. The Blackbird that joined Heidi's goats in a government laboratory, well, actually it had a very nice life too. Mind you, when not-Anthea trotted in a white goat, which she had Ned pet and the 120 year, three month, five day, and six minute year old goat dropped dead, that did cause a stir. Mycroft ate an entire peach pie. It tasted like heaven. He licked his lips and ordered another. Apples with gruyere cheese. He also sent Sherlock the addresses for three likely Moriarty. Because true to fanfic form, he wanted his little brother to be happy. Sherlock, who still hasn’t forgiven him for not actually ruling the world, sniffed. But he kept the addresses.


	4. Song of Sixpence, Some Rye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is some explanation as to why the denizens of the Pie Hole were in England in the first place. Followed by some adventure and a great deal of alliteration.

There may be some question as to why the Piemaker, the Dead Girl, the Detective Emerson Cod and Olive Snook were participating at a comfort food convention in England.

The reason was simple, it was Olive’s idea. Olive had mapped an entire campaign composed of persistent conversation, pamphlets, prestige and convincing Chuck to ask Ned.

"I think the Pie Hole should participate in the Spectacular-Spectacular Miracular-Vernacular Comfort Food Oracular convention in Jolly Old England." Chuck bobbed on her gogo shod feet and brightly nodded her gogo hatted head.

When Chuck said jolly, Ned imagined a jolly old man with a bowl full of jelly and sparklers.

The reason for this was simple.

When Ned had been at the Longborough School for Boys for three months, five days, eleven hours and fifty nine minutes, he'd discovered a black and white television in the left attic. Though the television’s reception was poor, its reception with Ned was excellent. When he could sneak away to its electronic company, he had watched many an hour of PBS. One endless pledge drive had featured a jolly old jelly eating Englishman who waved sparklers and explained why Ned should contribute in between morsels of television. Sadly like many things in Ned‘s life, just as that pledge drive was at an end and the prospect of the final episode of “Blake’s 7” lay before him, the old television left him by way dying and no amount of slapping or tapping by Ned could bring it back.

So while his head said that he no desire to go anywhere, his inability to say no to Chuck coupled, (and how much did he long for coupling) with his long held affection for British accents, meant that he said, "Yes." He smiled. He glowed from within in a sense of sheer and utter panic.

That Olive came with them to jolly old England was to be expected. It had been her idea. That Emerson Cod came with them was not expected, as the prospect of leaving prospective clients was as dire as a Biblical plague to the knit totting gumshoe.

He said only, "There comes a time in every detective's life when he has to make a consultation." He clutched a copy of "Lil’ Gumshoe" under his arm as he said it.

Olive had the vague impression that he wanted to pray to a saint. Chuck thought he wanted to ask for a second opinion about his book with an overseas publishing potentate. Ned thought he wanted to eat meat pie, which as Ned was a vegetarian for reasons of reanimate meat, Ned avoided making as well he could, which was very well indeed.

There was some validity to each of their impressions and thoughts.

The reason for Emerson’s accompaniment had its roots in the year 1976 and in the place New York. Young Emerson, aged fifteen years, four months, three days, and nine minutes, had discovered the color purple and had taken to wearing suits that would have made his hero Shaft proud. Emerson Cod and his mother, Calista Cod, were engaged on a case that young Emerson knew would go down in history as “The Badass Adventure of Cod and Cod in New York.” For you see, the son of Irene Adler, the star of many a stage, had been kidnapped by an international villain of mystery, which was an adventure that was very badass indeed.

As Adler’s stems were long, her pipes pure, and teenage hormones rampant in Emerson’s veins, Emerson engaged in a magnificent crush on the Adler, which quite addled his mind. This was to make an impression on young Emerson, as was the hand of his mother on the back of his head (“Snap out of it!”), which quite jostled his purple hat with the purple feather.

Also to make an impression was the arrival of the Consulting Detective, which could only be described as Extremely Badass. As Calista Cod engaged in hot pursuit, the Consulting Detective jumped down from the top of a dumpster where he’d been examining the by-products of certain species of rats and took the heat-bearing suspect down with a wicked right jab of a riding crop, which was the Consulting Detective‘s weapon of choice. (“Wrong!”)

The Cods’ weapon of choice was hot lead wrapped in warm wool, but nevertheless the Consulting Detective was brilliant, badass and British.

The Consulting Detective’s ability to instantly know the truth of a person impressed even Calista Cod, (“That and two cents will get you nothing. We’re not sharing the fee for rescuing the rich kid.”) as did the rescue of the Adler’s son, which involved several extremely dangerous chases down back alleys, a wicked interrogation in a Dim Sum parlor of repute, and Emerson making a perilous crawl through a heating duct where it is sad to report, he lost a purple patent shoe.

Although, what really left an impression was the room full of gold underneath the Bank of New York, (“Sweet solid gold Jesus,” which to avoid confusion was said by both Cods) the theft of which they prevented and was in some extremely obscure and overly complicated way related to the kidnapping of the Adler’s son.

Soon their share of the bank reward money in hand, (“Since we were the ones who put you onto this case, we should get a share of the reward.”) as well as their fee for the rescue of the Adler’s son. Sadly - for Emerson at least - the son was more interested in Emerson than the mother, who was very married to her attorney. A fact of the case that everyone had ignored up until that point.

To Emerson’s astonishment, his own mother held out her hand to the Consulting Detective. (“It’s been real education watching your work.”) Since her hand was holding a cheap cigar, the Consulting Detective took it, identified the tobacco (“Blue River Crooks, Virginia tobacco, mass produced in Crook de Crooks, Pennsylvania”) and the year it was grown (“1975”). The Consulting Detective then reached into his black wool coat and pulled out two cigars that he’d been given by a client (“Given the layering of cigar smoke in your hair follicles, these will be preferable.”) and which he handed to Calista and her son. At a nod from his mother, and after a certain amount of adult ritual, that was how Emerson Cod’s first cigar was a Hecho en Cuba, Totalmente a mano Gloria Cubana cigar. This made an impression.

The final impression, as the Consulting Detective left before the smoke had finished smoking, was from Emerson’s partner, best friend, and mother, who pulled out her knitting needles and expressed her opinion of the Consulting Detective. (“Emmy, there goes a man who needs a hobby. Corpses don’t keep a body warm at night.”)

Emerson Cod had a hobby and an array of knitted throws, scarves and sweaters that kept him very warm. What he did not have was his daughter. However, he had a plan to publish a pop-up book that could serve as a map for a child to find the father who missed her. Before it could be published, he dearly wanted a (free) consultation and the Consulting Detective had answered his last three emails with, “Boring,” and “Not a case,” and “It is vital that you email me the type of shampoo that she used.” This last response Emerson thought might have been sent in error, but he had sent the relevant information.

And so it was that while the Consulting Detective was no saint, Emerson dearly wanted to consult with him, and in the end there was meat pie, but not one that Emerson wanted to eat.

Two days, five hours and twenty-two minutes after their arrival in England, Mr. Pender Pendergast, the organizer of the Spectacular-Spectacular Miracular-Vernacular Comfort Food Oracular, was found poisoned, bludgeoned, stabbed and then baked in a pie with four and twenty blackbirds.

Dead Girl, otherwise known as lonely tourist Charlotte Charles, clapped her hands to her face in a way that was both sad and delighted. Olive was less than delighted. Ned was even less delighted as Olive did not know his secret and there could be no questioning of the unfortunate dead man while Olive stood next to him with her hands clutched to her chest.

This required fast thinking on the part of Detective Emerson Cod, who with a wide smile not unlike that of a shark, if a shark wore a purple and pink paisley silk shirt, said, "Itty Bitty."

Olive perked up, because she loved it when she was Itty Bitty. "Yes."

Emerson continued, "Since this case clearly implicates you and your boss in homicidal pie making, we should do some sleuthing. I’ll look over the body for clues. You should get out there in the crowd and find out what the witnesses saw and when they saw it."

Olive was torn by the sense that she was once again being shunted aside from the central secret that Ned concealed and delight that she had been asked to participate in an investigation. Delight and desire to grill suspects won out. She clapped her hands and said, "I'll wring the witnesses like a dish rag." She scampered off to do just that.

She soon met with Mrs. Minty Marchmont, who was interrogating a chicken into a pan along with some lightly defenestrated carrots and disturbing chestnuts in oil until queasy and disappointed.

Minty smiled at Olive. "I love your accent. It’s so exotic." She perished some peas. "Since marrying my husband," she held up her hand and waggled the finger with a wedding ring, "I've met so many exotic people from so many exotic places. Me, the daughter of the landlord of the Marquis of Queensbury in Tilegate Road, Reading. And here I am, talking to someone from Papen County, America."

The husband in question, the Honorable Simon Marchmont, clutched a glass of 2002 Rubicon. "Because a day so dire that we are participating in a comfort food convention deserves a wine as dark and deliciously sinful as the silken private parts of an Argentinean Tango instructor as he rocks against you on a hot summer night." He threw back his wine and poured himself some more from the bottle clutched in his hand. “At least Pender Pendgast has met his timely end.”

Olive said, "So, you weren’t close to the late Mr. Pendergast.” She grinned up at him like a shark, if a shark wore a lime green dress and six inch green heels.

The Hon. Simon Marchmont said, “Close! Ha!”

Minty leaned over and said, “He would insist on calling the Quill and Tassel at Bray’s, that’s our award winning restaurant, signature Bread And Butter Pudding with fennel shavings, bread n’ butter pudding.”

The Hon. Simon Marchmont snarled, “He never even mentioned the fennel. What kind of foodie is that. He should have been drown in a river years ago!” He waved a hand in the air, which astonishingly managed to gesticulate both wildly and forcefully without spilling a drop of wine.

Minty eyed her husband. “It did make the Mr. ever so cross.” She loudly whispered, “He’s been drinking bottles of Rubicon ever since we got here.”

The Hon. Simon Marchmont sneered. “At one hundred and twenty-five pounds a bottle it’s cheap and sinful and that’s what a place like this calls for.” He glared at the ceiling. “Florescent lights. Florescent! And industrial carpet!”

“Yes, dear,” said Minty, who briskly embarrassed some turnips. Olive sighed, because if her first suspect had been here in the open drinking all afternoon, which the stack of empty bottles behind him seemed to confirm, it would have been difficult for him to have baked Mr. Pender Pendergast into a pie, or for that matter have walked in a straight line.

Meanwhile, of his death, all that Mr. Pender Pendergast had to say on the subject was this, "This a delicious pie." On which words, he stuffed some of the crust surrounding him into his mouth. "If I'm not mistaken, this is rendered pork lard from pigs raised in Dartmoor." Mr. Pender Pendergast crunched happily.

"Uh," said Ned, his eyes firmly on his watch.

"Look fool," Emerson cut to the chase, "I mostly care about your sorry ass in that your death implicates my associates and by association me, and I’ve got other things to be doing. So cut with the crust and tell us who baked you up."

Sadly, the fact was that Mr. Pender Pendergast had no idea who had done him in and baked him up. Having been done in in so many ways and as far as he knew hadn't an enemy in the world.

He died chewing, which would have made him happy. "At least he re-died happy," said Chuck. At which point, the local police arrived at the scene of the crime.

The local police, in the form of the Detective Inspector, took a dim view of the Piemaker in that he was a Piemaker and that Pender Pendergast had been baked in a pie.

Emerson had gotten so far as lodging his, "Aw, Hell No!” protest, when the Consulting Detective swept in looking precisely as he had in 1976, which was unlikely in the extreme, but there it was.

Since he was still brilliant, presumably still badass and definitely still British, the Consulting Detective solved the whodunit in three shakes of a goat's tail and identified the three murderers. For this was a murder so thoroughly complete that it required three murderers to complete it. In the form of the King of Diamond Chestnuts, King Butcher, the Knave of Clubs Cookies, Knave Baker, and the Queen of Strawberry Heart-tarts, Desdemona Filigree Queen Candlestickmaker.

As a follow up, the Consulting Detective threw a thoroughly baked blackbird at Ned. Given that it was quickly restored to life, which made the Consulting Detective's companion, the Good Doctor, exclaim, "Extraordinary!" Ned’s nerves were simultaneously shot with unspeakable dread and filled with the emotional glee that fondly remembered PBS engendered in him at the title “The Doctor” good or otherwise.

Sadly in the ensuing melee with the to-be-apprehended and apprehensive murderers, nuts were thrown, cookies crumbled, tarts flung and the murderers fled out the back door with the Detective Inspector in pursuit.

The Consulting Detective smiled at the lot of them coolly, nodded to Emerson, “Gumshoe,” and swept out like a hurricane of detection.

Detective Emerson Cod straightened his knit sweater and chased after the Consulting Detective. The “Lil’ Gumshoe” in a knit bag over his shoulder.

Olive galloped close behind, because the hand that she wanted was the truth, and even across a convention center, she could see that the Consulting Detective dealt hands of truth in spades or possibly aces. Maybe a royal flush. Olive wasn’t sure of her metaphor. She was sure that this Itty Bitty wasn’t going to be left behind.

Ned didn’t follow as the Piemaker had no desire to be anywhere near the man who threw a dead blackbird at him. And although this was a case that involved a corpse baked into a pie, Chuck stayed with him with only a single sigh. Also, as she reflected, someone else was sure to die soon.

Instead of hot pursuit, Ned rolled a cool piecrust, while Chuck got them both plates of Architect’s Fish and Chips made by their new friend Minty Marchmont, who loved both their accents and wanted to hear all about Couer d'Couers. The Hon. Simon Marchmont had finally given in to the results of drinking five bottles of 2002 Rubicon, and while not dead, on the morrow would wish he were for he’d still be in a place with fluorescent lighting and industrial carpeting.

Ned was in the midst of a forward push of his rolling pin when a very pretty girl with dark curling hair brushed by him while texting. Behind her, gamboled a gamboling goat on a leash. The goat nibbled at Ned and gamboled no more. Chuck marveled into her Architect’s fish and chips, which were quite good and had a North African sort of influence.

Minty got a glint in her eye. “My mother-in-law, the late Lady Marchmont had a very interesting recipe from the 1700s for disambiguated goat.” She put her hands on her hips. “I’ll get my knives.” She trotted out of the booth.

The girl didn’t look up from her phone. “There’s no need. Someone will collect the goat.” What she did not add was that it was an extremely old goat and bound to be tough. Even if it was thoroughly disambiguated, which it soon would be in a very post mortem sort of way.

After that, it could be said with some accuracy that the Piemaker was very nervous. "I'm very nervous." Ned worried at the cuff of his sleeve even as his gastro-intestinal system worried at the lining of his stomach. He worried through all the rest of the day and through the making of three separate pies and was even then worrying his way back to their hotel room.

Charlotte bounced along the busy road London road down which cars were indeed driving the “wrong” way. "There’s nothing to be nervous about. Just because the Consulting Detective threw a blackbird at you, which then came back to life in front of everyone, Emerson and Olive have disappeared in pursuit of murders, and a goat dropped dead when you touched it. Pish and tosh, we’re in jolly old England." Her smile strongly implied that she was using those words because she was in England and was feeling rather jolly herself, which was her general reaction to corpses. Being not-dead herself, she was a bit morbid.

Ned briefly allowed himself to be charmed by Charlotte Charles’ use of the words pish and tosh and jolly but could not overcome the sense that he was being watched.

He was being watched.

The Indispensable Auditor pressed down with his fork and tested the firmness of a strawberry in his strawberry pie, which the Piemaker had made just that morning. The taste of it lingered on his tongue like several poetic things metaphorically encompassing all that was good in this world and the next. Given that the pie had been exposed to a rather virulent strain of botrytis fruit rot, the fact that the fruit was as a fresh as another metaphor was a delightful clue.

He was, all evidence and rumor to the contrary, fond of delight. Less so of Delirium. That was his younger brother's province, which was why he was well pleased with his pie.

He put aside his plate and said, "I would like to offer you a job."

Ned, his key card in his hand, and his mouth open as he stood in the doorway to his hotel room, said, "What? Who are you and how did you get in here and there's no reason to be offering me jobs, because I'm a simple Piemaker and I have nothing to hide. Except my secret recipes, which I got out of a book. So they aren't secret and I have no secrets and,"

Charlotte Charles whisked around him, without touching him at all. "Hello." Her eyes widened. "Are you a secret spymaster come to menace us over mysterious and enigmatic secrets having to do with this being jolly old England."

The Indispensable Auditor, who might have been the Secret Spymaster except that information was classified, flickered his gaze over them and possibly the rest of the planet besides. "I was thinking a simple monthly annuity to be paid in recompense for some extremely simple tasks."

Chuck clapped her hands. "Recompense. He said recompense." She turned to Ned. "We could become spies and get licenses to kill, which would very convenient if you think about it." She turned to the Indispensable Auditor. "Can you give out licenses to kill?"

The Indispensable Auditor, who did not generally bother with the minutia of things like licenses as he had clerks to handle paperwork, said, "Chuck, if I may call you Chuck, if I could and did, I would hardly discuss it so early in our acquaintance." He smiled and tapped the empty plate with an index finger. "Now then, this is excellent pie."

Ned clenched his hands, for as a Piemaker by trade and an excellent one at that, he was naturally attuned to comments that didn’t actually refer to pie. "That’s what I am. A Piemaker. I make pie with fruit, which I don't have to kill with a license, because it's fruit and that doesn't take a license, unless that requires a license in England." Ned knew that he did not need a license to bake. He had watched multiple seasons of East Enders.

While Chuck said, “And by excellent pie, do you mean certain spy adventures in which we rappel up and down the walls of certain monasteries that are actually the headquarters of megalomaniacal geniuses that are intent on world domination?” She leaned forward on her shoes and waved her hands in the international sign for megalomaniacal genius.

“No, I mean it’s excellent pie. Although, a megalomaniacal genius or two may come into matters later, but first I think we should stick to pie.” He smiled at them both. He liked pie. Although, these days, he indulged less than he had in his younger years. Still, he swiped a faint swirl of strawberries with his little finger and indulged in a last taste. He wrote several things in a small notebook from his inside pocket. He wrote in a code of his own devising based on cuneiform, a jazz rhythm by Brubeck, the weight of six pence, and the pattern in which a handful of rye from his pocket had fallen to the ground on December 31st, 1899. He left without touching either Chuck or Ned. Although, he did wink one eye as he went.

Ned remained nervous.

Meanwhile, Olive was fast in pursuit of the truth.

They were also being shot at. This was unexpected, given the purported lack of guns in England, and yet it seemed as if everyone but the Americans was packing, for this was not the first but the fifth exchange of gunfire in their pursuit of Butcher, Baker and Candlestickmaker.

In addition, Emerson had been propositioned by three separate foreign potentates (one lascivious and two larcenous), had an blue carbuncle the size of his baby's fist placed in his coat pocket, which he quite liked, and jumped over close placed rooftops, which he did not like. The Consulting Detective was in ridiculously good shape and his idea of a case involved a great deal of running around. Emerson considered that he might want to exercise more.

Itty Bitty kept pace. Finally as Olive crouched behind a tree in Dartmoor Park in Chislehurst, with Emerson conveniently trapped behind a different tree, she had the opportunity to ask the burning question that had been ever on her mind. “Consulting Detective, I’ve got a need for some consultation. I can tell that you’re in the know, and I’ve got to know. What’s the what with the Piemaker?”

The Consulting Detective from behind his own tree gave her a considering look.

The Good Doctor spoke first. “Is this really how you want to know and who you want to tell it?” He glanced at the Consulting Detective and fired another shot.

This was not how Olive Snook wanted to know and who she wanted to tell her. But once of the tide of the Consulting Detective’s truth was started, like the sea it could not be stopped.

It could, however, be sung over.

Olive opened her mouth and let her song (or technically Billy Joel’s song) about “Honesty” pour out of her. She sang, “If you search for tenderness, It isn't hard to find, You can have the love you need to live, But if you look for truthfulness, You might just as well be blind, It always seems to be so hard to give,” and quite forgetting that she was in the middle of a heated exchange of bullets, spread her arms wide and stepped away from the tree.

Fortunately, Candlestickmaker was an avid music lover and put down her highly-unexpected-in-England gun, which was how she was apprehended.

Much to the chagrin of the Consulting Detective, no one would listen to him until Olive had finished singing. Still, he murmured some comments about the blackbird feathers on Candlestickmaker’s shoes, which were highly relevant, but hard to hear over the singing.

Desdemona Filligree Queen Candlestickmaker clapped.

The Good Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but it was time for more running. Emerson muttered, “This is not how I like to do my detecting,” but pushed himself to follow.

As they crept through Butcher King‘s Counting House, Olive whispered, “It’s been an honor to have been included.”

The Good Doctor smiled and moved a little closer behind the stack of counted crates. “After we’re done, would you be interested in going out for a pint?”

Olive blinked with joy, because she very much would and then she blinked with “Owe,” because the Consulting Detective had tackled her. Purely to save her from being hit by King Baker’s poisoned dart.

Olive looked up at the Consulting Detective. “Owe.” and then, “Oh! Oh, I understand.” She apologized to the Good Doctor, because given how she felt about the Piemaker, she couldn’t possibly get involved in another triangle. “Triangle is my least favorite instrument.”

In the end, the villains were safely and finally ensconced in prison, and Emerson explained about “Lil’ Gumshoe”.

The Consulting Detective said, “I fail to see the relevance of a book.”

The Good Doctor sighed. “He’ll look over the book.” He straightened his knit sweater. “And he’s taking us all out for a pint.”

The Consulting Detective grinned. “There is a pub around the corner. The Hanged Man. I kept the owner’s sister’s boyfriend’s best friend’s cousin from the noose.” They went to the Hanged Man and had free pints. The Consulting Detective turned the pages of “Lil’ Gumshoe” and said, “Juvenile, but not boring.” He made five notes on five pages that were clarifying in the extreme.

The Good Doctor looked around his shoulder, because he certainly couldn’t have looked over it. Much as he had at when they were looking at the sad noseless corpse of Jennifer Wren, (this occurred between potentate proposition one and two, but has been elided over due to time constraints) which was an image in his head that Emerson could have done without, because he‘d been thinking about eating a slice of comfort meat pie.

The Good Doctor made some suggestions for improving things like narrative flow and characterization. The Good Doctor had a small smile that turned down on itself. “I’ve been doing some writing myself lately. Hope it helps.”

Emerson was sure that it would. Any book that the Consulting Detective considered not boring could do exactly what Emerson wanted, which was something he’d gladly trade two baby-fisted carbuncles to get.

Not that he returned the carbuncle, for which he knitted a special carbuncle pouch.

On their return back across the pond, which was not so much a pond as an ocean, Emerson stored the carbuncle in its knitted pouch in his desk along with the picture of The Girl and an advanced copy of “Lil’ Gumshoe”, which incorporated the Consulting Detective and the Good Doctor’s suggested changes.

Then it was just a matter of waiting.

For every ending is another beginning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Much like this one.

 

This week at the Pie Hole, on special…

Fresh fruit Oalolliberry with French Vanilla, and  
Granny Smith apple with Cheddar  
Lemon Tartlet with triple cream  
Plum and Jasmine with crème fraiche

Also,  
This week from the Posh Nosh grange Aged Disambiguated Goat with Houndnuts from Baskerville with Basil Aioli.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Further Explanations with regards to Rye Sixpence  
> ~First an apology that you've made your way through and perhaps still don't know why Butcher, Baker and candlestickmaker killed Mr. Pender Pendergast. Unfortunately, Sherlock explained everything during Olive's song. Howevever, it turned out that Butcher, Baker and Candlestickmaker went together to a midnight showing of "Strangers on a Train" and tragically misunderstood the central conceit. This, as Sherlock noted in his unheard monologue, is more common that you might think.  
> ~Blake's 7 - I myself had to wait five years between watching B7 and seeing the final episode. Perhaps it was best Ned never sees it.  
> ~Emerson's adventure in New York is a reference to the 1976 "Sherlock in New York" film. Naturally, Emerson would see this as his and his mother's adventure with some small participation by some British guy. Also, I'm ridiculously fond of young Emerson.  
> ~The Marchmonts - Ah, Posh Nosh. Haven't seen it. That's okay, ["I'll wait."](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=posh+nosh&aq=f). Since they had a comfort food episode, of course they really should never be at a comfort food convention. But those carrots won't humiliate themselves.  
> ~Pretty girl with curling hair - the real question isn't is that notAnthea, but how long has notAnthea been working for the Indispensable Auditor. There is, of course, no way she could be Heidi. And yet...  
> ~The Indispensable Auditor was almost the Secret Spymaster, but really, only Sherlock gets to wander around telling people that his big brother is the British government. Ah, siblings.  
> ~Gun battle - odd how all these people have all these guns. I blame the mysterious trunk in everyones attic. And possibly Global Warming. And the need to put pound coins in some bed sits to turn on the electricity.  
> ~The Hanged Man does a simply lovely cheese plate. So, Olive made sure that Chuck went there the night before they left.  
> ~Blue carbuncle did make a stop in its journey in the gullet of a goose, but you may be assured that it was thoroughly disinfected before it made its way to Emerson's pocket.


	5. [podcast] Case of the Rolling Wheel and the Long Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A podcast of the facts, and possible some more.  
> Ch1: The facts were these, when Sherlock Holmes was thirty years, four months, twenty-nine days, five hours and thirty-six minutes old, he fell over a waterfall. However, despite his considerable experience in the matter, he found that sometimes death had a grace period.  
> Ch2: In which there is some explanation as to what happens when the Blackbird sang - no noses removed.  
> Ch4: In which there were further explanations as to why the denizens of the Pie Hole were in England. Plus adventure. Plus singing.

Length: Mp3, 20.0Mb, 42.43  
Music Credit: Portions of Danse Macabre with Ben Sollee  
AudioFic Archive [Case of the Rolling Wheel and the Long Road](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/case-of-rolling-wheel)Chapters 1 and 2  
and then [Six Pence, Some Rye](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/song-of-sixpence-some-rye) Chapter 4

This appears to be down, so I'm posting the links to my own site as well.  
Rolling Wheel  
[Download this story (right click and save)](https://fresne.podbean.com/mf/play/gdruf4/TheRollingWheelAndTheLongRoad.mp3)  
Song of Six Pence.  
[Download this episode (right click and save)](https://fresne.podbean.com/mf/play/78vgez/Song6PenceRye.mp3)

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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